I was in Turkey between the 1st of August and the 30th of August 2022. Turkey’s yearly inflation at the time of writing is close to 90% and the Turkish lira gets devalued on a daily basis, so these numbers might be different if I am to do the same things another time.
Let’s take a look at my backpacker’s budget for Turkey.
Accommodation
Turkey is rather cheap. Accommodation in hostels and cheap hotels varies between 8 euro and 18 euro – the minimum and maximum I paid.
I paid for 25 nights in hotels and hostels, spent 4 nights in a hostel on a Workaway (paying with my labor), and one night in an overnight bus to Iraqi Kurdistan.
Total accommodation cost came to around 312 euro making the average 10.4 euro per night.
Food
Food was the second biggest expense. If you cook with ingredients bought from the store, you can easily spend a third of what I gave.
I love food though, especially while traveling, and frequently splurge on national dishes, meals particular to the region, more snacks than necessary, too much dessert, and all that out around the tourist areas where the food is most expensive.
I try to be frugal with that too and follow the usual maxim: “Eat where the locals eat“, but if I have to choose between price and new culinary experiences, I usually pick the latter.
The cheapest thing I ate was a doner kebab for 0.80 euro, and the most expensive was firin kebab, which unbeknown to me when I ordered, cost almost 9 euro. Pricey!
In total, I spent 249 euro making the average 8.3 euro per day.
Transportation
For transport, I used mainly buses. The 178 euro total includes the international train ride from Sofia to Istanbul, consequently, buses (and rarely trains) to Izmir, Selçuk, Denizli, Kaş, Myra, Antalya, Konya, Adana, Gaziantep, Şanlıurfa, Mount Nemrut, Diyarbakir, Mardin, Midyat and Cizre.
The sum also includes all the dolmuş tickets between some of the smaller cities and all the money for public transport within the bigger cities.
I also hitchhiked a few times in Southeastern Turkey.
The average daily cost comes out to 5.93 euro.
Insurance
For travel insurance, I use a company called Safety Wings, which provides a subscription model insurance, best suited for young people (as the price is understandably lower).
It costs 42 dollars for 4 weeks, which at the time of writing comes out to about 45 euro for 30 days or 1.5 euro per day.
Culture and Activities
All the money I spent on museums and entrance fees to attractions is only 40 euro. In Turkey, most museums are very cheap, but the ones that are popular are comparably very expensive.
I went to very few of the “must-see” museums in Istanbul, as I had either been there before, or they were not interesting to me, but gave 11 euro for entrance tickets both to Pamukkale and Ephesus.
After a while, I stopped going to the archeology museums, as they get repetitive quickly. If you’re an ancient history and/or archeology aficionado, then you’ll have a blast in Turkey!
The average cost per day came to 1.33 euro.
Other
Everything else not covered above I consider incidental expenses. I needed new flip-flops, some glue, and other small things along the way which I collectively (but not very originally) call “other”.
Average per day: 0.43 euro.
A Backpacker’s Budget for Turkey
| Accommodation | 312 euro |
| Food | 249 euro |
| Transport | 178 euro |
| Travel Insurance | 45 euro |
| Culture | 40 euro |
| Other | 13 euro |
| TOTAL | 837 euro |
In total, I spent 837 euros for 30 days, which makes the average 27.9 euros per day.
